262 GRALL.E. 



completely to establish the identity of the species through 

 all its changes, much as they differ from each other. In 

 consequence of the extent of change, the perfect plumage of 

 the bird has seldom been accurately described or faithfully 

 represented. 



Young birds, in their first plumage, are most frequently 

 met with, as being not only the most discursive, but the first 

 in feather. They have a slight tinge of brown on the throat, 

 pale mottlings of grey and brownish at the bend of the 

 wings ; the scapulars grey ; the greater coverts dusky with 

 buff margins ; the white bar, on the middle coverts of the 

 primaries, more conspicuous ; and the bill and feet not so 

 deep in tint as the mature birds. 



That the grey phalarope should be at once the most 

 northerly of birds, and the one in which the seasonal changes 

 of plumage are the most remarkable, is a very strong proof 

 of the connection that there is between heat, or perhaps it is 

 more accurate to say light, and the colours of birds. As this 

 bird can keep either the land or the sea to the very last hour 

 that they are open to any living creature, it acquires, on 

 much of the body plumage, the whiteness of snow ; but in 

 the summer, when it enjoys the continual sunshine within 

 the Arctic circle, it colour resembles that of a tropical bird.* 



* In the Phalaropes, the toes are edged with lobated membranes, by 

 means of which their utility as swimming organs is greatly in-Teased. 

 In the red-ncked Phalarope, the lobated membranes have finely-pecti- 

 nated edges; in the grey Phalurope, the membranes are scalloped. 

 Tin 'so birds not only frequent lakes and rivers, but the shores of the sea, 

 and swim lightly amidst the roughest waves. Both are natives of the 

 high northern latitudes. 



